by Unknown
“How dare you come, Nehor. You are not wanted here. Jesus cast you out.”
Nehor responded with a bow of respect. “I never stopped loving him. Even though he cast me out from among his closest disciples he forgave me for my sins. He forgave all men for their sins and taught that we should forgive each other. Do you not adhere to his teachings?”
Matthew began to cry and said, “I will forgive you, Nehor. You have heard what happened here?”
“I have heard.”
Nehor looked around and took stock of all of the disciples save Judas and cautiously asked if he was also here.
“He is dead. He hanged himself last night. He could not stand the pain of his deed. Someone gave him silver to betray Jesus.”
“Do we know who?”
“The Temple elders, the priests, I do not know.”
“Some are saying Jesus’ body was stolen,” Nehor said.
“Not by us!” Matthew exclaimed.
“What about the Romans?”
“Why would they? They would not wish to elevate his death by feigning a miracle. There is only one explanation, Nehor. He has been called to the side of God. He has been resurrected.”
Peter was already walking from the tomb toward the city gate, clutching Jesus’ burial shroud to his chest. Thomas was following, then James, Andrew, John, and the others.
“I must go,” Matthew said. “We are meeting in a house on Mount Zion to discuss what has happened, to pray and give thanks. It is a stirring time. Jesus has risen!”
“What is Peter carrying?” Nehor asked.
“It is his shroud. The image of his body appears on it as if God Himself has painted it.”
Nehor and Sacmis held back and waited for the throng to fully disperse. A few stragglers went in and out of the tomb and finally they were alone.
Entering, Nehor passed through the weeping room and stooped to enter the burial chamber. The day was already bright and hot but the limestone tomb was cool and dark. In the shaft of light from the tomb door Nehor could see that the stone burial bench was stained the color of rust with dried blood.
“Guard the door,” Nehor told Sacmis. “I want no one entering.”
When Sacmis was in place he removed the bowl from his bag and carefully placed it upon the bench.
He stood and stared.
He heard an argument. Sacmis and another man who said he was Joseph, owner of the tomb, coming to take possession of it.
Sacmis was denying him entrance but the man persisted and tried to push his way in.
Nehor looked back and saw a black-bearded, pudgy face pushing in far enough to see both him and the bowl.
Joseph shouted, “What is happening in here? This is my tomb! What are you doing with that bowl? Is this magic? Is it sorcery? I know who you are. Jesus cast you out!”
But the face disappeared as Sacmis manhandled Joseph away from the door. Nehor heard a volley of threats and counterthreats and the sound of rapidly retreating sandals when, he reckoned, Sacmis pulled a dagger.
Nehor stepped into the weeping room to speak to Sacmis when something happened behind him.
The burial chamber flashed bright, awash in light as if the tomb at once had been opened to the receive the rays of a midday sun.
He shouted at Sacmis to hold his ground at the door and painfully squinted into the light.
The light dissipated gradually and then he heard something.
Was it a voice?
He listened closely, hearing the words, “Dear Lord.” It was the sound of praying.
With his heart in his mouth Nehor crept through the portal to the burial chamber and there he saw him bathed in a soft, fading glow.
He was naked. His hands and ankles bore the angry black holes of the spikes, his chest marked by scourging. But he was smiling warmly and he opened his arms in a welcoming gesture.
“Jesus,” Nehor muttered numbly.
And Jesus said simply, “I have returned.”
Nehor’s head was swimming with things he wanted to know. Yet all he could manage to ask was, “Where were you?”
“In the realm of our Lord, our God.”
Then Nehor blurted out, “What was it like?”
Jesus smiled more broadly. “It is for good and righteous men to know when it becomes their time. It is not for me to tell them. Where are my disciples?”
“On Mount Zion.”
“I must go to them. Will you give me clothes?”
Nehor threw off his own robe, leaving himself clothed only in a loincloth.
Jesus donned the robe and saw the bowl on the bench, but it was no longer black. It was glowing white.
“This cup, this Grail, it is holy,” he said. “Take care to protect it and keep it safe.”
#
And Jesus lived among his startled and awestruck disciples for forty days, teaching them and praying with them. Fearful of the Romans, they endeavored to hide him away in safe houses but he himself showed no fear and boldly would go forth and appear in and around Jerusalem meeting with adoring followers who had heard of the miracle of his resurrection.
Though he would tell no one what he had experienced during his disappearance, he spoke in reverential tones of many things pertaining to the Kingdom of God. He talked of the path one must follow in life to attain God’s grace and he commanded his disciples to disperse from Jerusalem that they might preach his gospel of salvation to all the people of the world.
#
On the fortieth day Nehor decided to act. He had been laying back, watching Jesus from a distance, shadowing his public sightings, accumulating evidence with his own eyes that the miracle of resurrection had transformed Jesus from a prophet to something much more resembling a deity.
On that morning he handed a papyrus scroll to Sacmis. “Take this to Peter and the other apostles. Today is the day I intend to send him back from whence he came.”
“Tell me how, master?” Sacmis asked.
“The Grail is here and yet Jesus walks the earth. I have, as you know, cloaked myself and drawn close to him while carrying the Grail as he preached in public squares. Yet nothing happened. I have come to believe that the resurrection stone exerts its power only at the place where death occurs.”
“But Jesus died on the cross.”
“Did he? Perhaps he was beyond saving but barely alive when he was taken down. The Sabbath was coming. His body was laid out in great haste. Perhaps no one noticed the last movements of a dying heart. Perhaps his spirit left him within the tomb.”
“That is what you believe?
“It is. And that is why I must get Jesus to return to the tomb. When that is done, if I am proved correct, I will convince the people that I am the chosen one to carry on his ministry on earth. We will found a new church, Sacmis, one that draws from Jesus’ well but owes allegiance to the great Qem who came before us. We will be rich, we will be powerful and, above all, we will be immortal.”
“How will you convince the people that you have been chosen?” Sacmis asked.
“I will die and like Jesus I will be resurrected.”
“How will you die?”
Nehor smiled. “You will kill me.”
#
In the evening, as the sun lowered in the sky and deepened in color, Nehor waited with Sacmis outside of Jesus’ empty tomb. In the distance they saw a small procession, and soon, walking through the Golgotha quarry, past the site of his crucifixion, Jesus came forward with his eleven remaining disciples, Joseph of Arimathea and the women—Mary Magdalene, Salome, Joanna, and Susanna.
Jesus had Nehor’s scroll in his hand. He approached and said, “I have come. What would you have me do?”
Nehor took the Grail from his bag and showed it to Jesus. After the resurrection it had returned to its natural black color. “Is this the bowl from which you drank wine on the Passover?”
“It is.”
“Would you enter your holy tomb with me so I may show you yet another miracle?”
; Jesus smiled at him and said, “I will come.”
Then Jesus’ followers cried out for him not to go, some saying that Nehor was evil, some, that it was a trick.
But Jesus said, “I have been among you nigh on forty days. I have delivered unto you my last earthly teachings. It is time I returned to sit at the side of God.” Then he raised his hands in a blessing and said, “May eternal peace be upon you,” and followed Nehor into the tomb.
#
A bright light flashed through the door of the tomb.
The disciples and the women shielded their eyes and fell to their knees in prayer. They strained to see.
In a short while a man came out of the tomb.
It was Nehor, clutching the Grail, white and glowing once again.
“He is gone!” he shouted to the people. “He has ascended.”
The disciples rushed past Nehor and in twos and threes they entered and saw for themselves that the tomb indeed was empty save for the crumpled robe Jesus had been wearing.
Peter came forward and asked, “What did Jesus say inside?”
Nehor smiled and replied with the lie he had practiced. “He said that I would inherit his mantle as Son of Man. But he also said that I had to show you, his apostles, that I was worthy.”
“And how must you do that?” Matthew asked skeptically.
“He said I must also drink sacramental wine and I must suffer and that I too will be resurrected. Then you will know I am to be the one to carry his message forward on this earth.”
As Jesus’ followers talked and argued among themselves, Sacmis poured some wine from a skin into the Grail and Nehor gulped it down.
They watched the Egyptian in fascination and heard him say to Sacmis, “Do it now. Make it slow, make it painful.”
And before anyone could do or say anything, the large man pulled a short Roman sword from his belt and ran it through Nehor’s gut, taking care to miss the most vital of the organs.
Nehor fell to his knees and let out a guttural yell of pure agony. He grabbed at the wound with his hands and they became wet and red.
“See?” he gasped, “I am dying.”
The circle of men and women slowly tightened around Nehor as his lifeblood ebbed. All the while, Nehor’s gaze was fixed hungrily on the Grail, which lay beside him.
Then Joseph of Arimathea raised his voice up and shouted, “There is one true Son of Man and one true Son of God and that is Jesus, our Christ and our Lord! I will not let this man, Nehor, use the holy chalice of Jesus’ last supper to further his evil plans. He has never been and will never be Jesus’ messenger. That duty belongs to you, his true apostles!”
Rushing forward, Joseph snatched the Grail from the dusty ground and took off with it down the slope of the quarry.
Nehor’s eyes widened in terror and as he toppled from his knees onto his side he groaned to Sacmis with his last breath, “Bring it back.”
Sacmis began running after Joseph, cursing and waving his sword, but when he got to the slope only paces behind the fleeing man he saw only a rubble-strewn hill and nothing else.
Joseph was gone.
Sacmis looked for him all evening and all through the night; and he would continue to look for him for the rest of his long life, recruiting others to his cause, other Qem, to whom he passed along the story of the Grail and the vast power that would accrue to them who found it.
Joseph hid that night like a rabbit down a hole in one of the many rock-cut tombs that honeycombed the quarry. Nehor’s corpse was never found. Jesus’ followers were of the opinion that Sacmis had taken his body and entombed it; because Nehor was despised, none but Sacmis were willing to entertain the possibility that he, like Jesus, had been resurrected. A few days passed and Joseph decided it was safe to come out from hiding and flee Judaea. He devoted his life to keeping the Grail and spreading the Gospel of Jesus.
Before he died, Joseph passed the Grail for safekeeping to a group of early Christians in the Roman province of Tarraconensis, who kept and venerated the relic but understood from his teachings that its power was best kept hidden lest evil men exploit it.
And generations later the Grail ascended, some would say closer to God, carried by monks to a high peak in Hispania to a mountain that would come to be called Montserrat.
37
“What time is it?” Arthur asked, blinking in the dark.
“Four.”
“A.M. or P.M.?”
“P.M.”
Claire was already awake, staring at the ceiling. She got up and parted the curtains, flooding the hotel room with light.
Arthur pulled the covers over his eyes and groaned for coffee.
There was a coffee machine in the room. She made him a cup and got into bed beside him.
“Some night,” he said.
“Yes, some night.”
“By the time we get ready and have some food it’ll almost be time to do it again.”
She drank from a bottle of orange juice without responding.
“You look tired,” he said. “Did you sleep?”
“Not much.”
“Any messages from your family? Is everything okay?”
“No messages, no.”
“What then? You’re off-kilter.”
“I don’t know that word.”
“Off balance. Not yourself.”
Her animation returned in a flourish of anger. “How can I be myself? Every day we stay here the danger only increases. We almost died at Modane!”
Arthur put his coffee down and said in exasperation, “Claire, it was you who suggested we come to Israel, remember? Complete the picture?”
“I know, I know,” she admitted, shaking her head. “I thought it was a good idea; but all night I’ve been questioning myself. I think I was wrong. Let’s go to Barcelona now, then somewhere nice, an island with a beach to get to know each other properly without the adventures. Just the two of us.”
He held her and pulled her close, moving his hand tenderly up her thigh to her back. “You’re having a delayed reaction to Modane. It’s normal. We’re here. We’ll finish this. One more night. One more tomb. Tomorrow we’ll go to Barcelona. We’ll have our news conference with all the data we have. We’ll deal with the authorities in Barcelona and Modane as quickly as we can. We’ll go to Toulouse. Then I’ll find us a tropical island with a nice sugar beach where we can make love all day and dance all night. How would that be?”
“It would be bliss,” she said.
He kissed her. “Tomorrow.”
#
The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is located within the Christian Quarter of the Old City adjacent to the maze of streets of the ancient Muristan district. Erected over the site many believed to be the true biblical Golgotha, the church in modern times is administered jointly by the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Armenian Apostolic Churches, and Neti had been able to secure nocturnal visitation rights for scientific study from the triumvirate.
They arrived at 11 P.M. and Neti parked on a side street close to the church courtyard. Lugging the same gear from the previous night, they entered the domed church, not through the great wooden doors at the main entrance but through a less-storied side door used by maintenance workers. Neti, acting as guide, took them through a series of storage rooms leading into the church where they emerged in the Chapel of Mary Magdalena and soon were standing in the rotunda.
A few incandescent fixtures had been left on for them, and though the light was dim, Arthur began to absorb the features that made the Church of the Holy Sepulcher different from any cathedral he had ever visited. For under the ornate dome of the rotunda, surrounded by massive marble columns, was a self-contained rectangular building, modest in proportions, with a fancy onion-domed cupola.
“The Edicule,” Neti said, drawing their attention. “That’s where the tomb is. That’s where we’re going.”
They set the equipment and Grail box down on the marble floor.
Neti pointed across the
central gallery, the Catholicon. “Down there and up the stairs is the shrine of Calvary: there’s a stone with a hole where the cross was supposed to have been placed. It looks a little different from the Garden Tomb, no?”
Arthur nodded. “Night and day.”
“You have to remember that this is all built on an area that in A.D. 33 would have looked not so different from where we were last night. It’s impossible to even use your imagination it’s so altered by two thousand years of successive shrines and churches. I think that’s why ordinary people have a stronger connection to the Garden Tomb, while a majority of scholars favor the authenticity of this place.”
The interior of the Edicule was dark. Neti entered first with one of her battery lamps and Arthur and Claire followed to get a sense of the layout before carrying in the monitoring devices. The first chamber, the Chapel of the Angel, was not much larger than a generous garden shed, its floor inlaid with panels of orange, white, and black marble. Dead center was a square marble altar, a pedestal with a flat glass top covering a slab of stone the size of a chessboard.
“That’s supposed to be a piece of the rolling stone which an angel pushed away,” Neti explained.
Arthur was looking past it to the portal that led to a second chamber. The arched passage, framed by creamy marble elaborately carved into a curtain motif, was low, preventing anyone from entering without bowing down.
Neti placed a second battery lamp inside and Arthur followed with his head low until he was through and could stand in the Tomb Chamber. This room was less than half the size of the other, and half its area was taken up by the stone burial couch. Directly ahead, partially obscured by Neti, he saw a painted icon of the Virgin Mary that overlaid a cupboard that, she told him, could be opened to reveal an older layer of the Edicule. To his right at knee height was a marble bench topped by Christ’s supposed burial slab. Over the bench was a red marble shelf with the colorful iconography that represented the three controlling churches.
